The downside of the Gentle Giant tongs is that they are fairly heavy and can be difficult to maneuver into small spaces where a snake might be hiding. They aren't the best choice of field tongs for these reasons, but they are excellent in the snake room for safely and gently moving animals around.
There are two other styles of tongs on the market. The Pilstrom style tongs are narrow and scissorlike, with the top jaw fitting inside a deep groove in the bottom jaw. I refer to these as "a snake chiropracter's nightmare" and suggest that they are good mainly for moving waterbowls and heavy cage furniture. An experienced handler can use them safely on snakes and some people like them very much for this purpose. However it is much too easy for someone less experienced to squeeze down hard enough to put harmful pressure on a snake's spine, so I don't generally recommend their use on live animals. I have personally seen and treated an uncomfortably large number of injuries to venomous snakes caused by inexperienced and frightened handlers using Pilstrom tongs.
The Gentle Giant is unmatched for gentle, stress-free snake moving for everyday maintenance in your snake room,
and can be used on large bodied snakes that none of the other tongs can handle safely. All three are durable tools that will give you many years of good use.
Two different ways of grasping a snake with tongs are illustrated here. In the first photo above, Buddy is handling an adult Florida cottonmouth by holding her lower body and keeping the animal's body mostly supported on the ground. In the second illustration, a very bad tempered blacktail rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus) is being grasped around the upper part of his body in order to limit his strike range. His body is also being supported on the ground, and he will be pushed and dragged across the floor rather than picked high up off the ground.
Ground support or the additional support of a hook is essential for heavy bodied pit vipers because their fragile spines can be dislocated or broken with their unsupported weight alone. Elapids and colubrids have much more tolerance for being lifted entirely off the ground with tongs, but they don't seem to enjoy it and may struggle more under tong restraint than they would on a hook.
well straight from the horses mouth now:lol:
This image illustrates how a snake's body may be supported on a hook while the animal is being lifted with tongs. This decreases the pressure on the snake's spine. The lifting should still be as brief as possible.
Never grab a snake by the neck with tongs as this will cause pain, injury and increased struggling. Grasp a smaller snake or a harmless snake midbody or lower. Grasp a large snake about 1/3 of the way down from the head to limit the distance it can strike at you. You may also try to tong a snake on the lower third of its body to drag it, but make sure that the tong is longer than the remaining length of snake.
Regardless of which style tong you are using, try not to lift a snake fully off the ground with tongs for longer than a few seconds without some other form of body support. You can use the tongs most effectively to slowly drag a snake across the ground in a "come-along" hold, pushing the animal into the sturdy safety container you have ready for it. Try to bring the container to the snake rather than the other way around to keep your handling time and stress on the animal to a minimum.
